About Yen Kai

Yen Kai the spend-thrifter loves to eat, drink, travel and spend save money. He's always pondering on ideas to solve the little problems of everyday living (what to eat, where to go, what to buy, how to save money etc.) and shares them here on this blog.

Tag: Shopback

It happened so quietly that i almost forgot to blog about it. Well, it took a while (which means i’m not spending so much which is a good thing), but i’ve reached the S$1000 withdrawn cashback milestone! Thank you Shopback! I’m glad Shopback is going strong, and we can continue to reap the benefits of cashback. My cashback mostly come from booking.com, Agoda, Taobao, Qoo10, Fave, iHerb and occasionally eBay. Sign up if you haven’t and get $5 credit, because why not?

I have just logged into my Agoda account, and lo and behold, i could not find the link to my Reward Points. Instead, i noticed that i had Gift Card credits. The Gift Cards have been issued on May 30, without any prior notice. One Gift Card expires end of this year, while the other at the end of next year.

I did a quick Google search and found out that some Agoda members have been given the option to switch from the Rewards Points system to the Gift Card system since last year. Now it seems the Rewards Points system has been axed and everyone is forcibly switched to the Gift Card system. Continue reading Agoda just scrapped their Reward Points

It’s been some time since I found time to blog. Meanwhile, I’ve been busy shipping Taobao stuff. Lots of stuff. For home renovation. All in all I shipped more than 2 CBM of goods, with more to come.

This would be my third time shipping via 86OF, but only the first time I shipped more than 0.5 CBM to qualify for free home delivery. With free home delivery, it is a good deal. There’s no way I can self-collect a full CBM worth of goods (see above), and some items won’t even fit into my car.

I received a call to confirm the delivery timing (apparently it was a logistics company that is a separate entity from 86OF). The delivery went well, and all goods were accounted for. There was just one item that was slightly damaged, but it has more to do with the seller not packing the item more securely. Continue reading 86OF bulky goods sea freight shipping

It’s been almost two years since I have used Shopback and I am happy to announce that I have just crossed the S$500 milestone!

Most of the cashback were accumulated from hotel bookings. Yes, I travel a lot, but most of us do travel every now and then and there’s no reason why anyone should miss out on rebates for hotel bookings. Hotel stays don’t normally come cheap, and the 6% you earn in cashback is very significant.

Earning cashback through Shopback is one of the few things that defy the saying “if it’s too good to be true, it probably is”. All it takes is a few clicks to get back a little of what you paid for online purchases.

If you haven’t signed up, you really should do it now! Free money, people.

For two months probably, Taobao went missing on Shopback. Apparently, they were revamping the mechanism for tracking Taobao purchases through Shopback.

Previously, you had to search for the item you wanted to purchase through the search bar in Shopback’s Taobao page. With the new approach that was just introduced, effective 8 Mar 2017, you can shop on Taobao through Shopback as you would any other merchants on Shopback, i.e. just click “Shop Now” and get redirected to the merchant site. Except, you also need to submit your Taobao order ID using a special form on Shopback. Continue reading Taobao is back on Shopback

I was invited to visit Shopback’s office today. Anyway, let me clarify that this is not a paid advertisement, although i did get a free lunch on them.

I was surprised to find the office housed inside the premise of NUS Enterprise, a start-up incubation space. I was told quite a few of the company founders were from NUS, so in a sense, NUS is giving them a helping hand. It’s easy to justify such an arrangement (the word “subsidy” comes to mind), given that they are already a success story. Everyone needs a success story, right?

NUS Enterprise

The company is already more than 80-strong, and I think they have a sure footing in this business. They went headlong into the market when few people understood the business model. I can imagine it would have been damn hard work negotiating with the merchants, so Shopback really deserves a pat on the back for the windfall they’re raking in right now.

Congested working space in Shopback office (everyone is in a presentation session)

In case you don’t know what Shopback is about, i have a very short writeup here. In essence, you’re rewarded for brand loyalty and accepting marketing content. Just about every business is giving cashback now, because consumers love the feeling of getting a “kickback”. Consumers are, themselves, the ones paying for it anyway.

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Saw something familiar in the Shopback mailer today – ezbuy! 6% cashback for Prime, buy-for-me and ship-for-me (8% during the current 2 days promotion which you’ll likely miss out on unless you happen to have something in their China warehouses right now, or you’re planning to buy something from Taobao right now).

I don’t know when they will clamp down on the coupon code “65APP15” (case-sensitive), but until then i’ve been enjoying 15% discount off the shipping when i do ship-for-me (which is all i do). If i were to get another 6% cashback, it means overall, i will be getting a 20% discount off the shipping fee.

I suspect this is just for a limited period only, just like for Qoo10. In any case, you’re missing out on a lot of rebates if you haven’t signed up for Shopback, so do it now!

Update 13 July 2016

Promo already over. As suspected, this was just a sprint campaign to reach out to the Shopback customer base.

I have just received S$166.16 in cashback for the hotel bookings of my recent trip, no kidding! Here’s how i did it.

Earn cashback through Shopback. Simple as that. Hotel booking websites take an average of 15% in commission from the hotel/accommodation provider for every booking done through their websites. Yes, that’s an awful lot of money! They’re willing to give you back 6% of that commission, so you better grab it! You can get this cashback if you do your hotel bookings through cashback websites, like Shopback.

There are 3 categories of spending for which Ebates works for me: eBay, US merchants and car rental. For everything else, there is Shopback.

Ebates rewards up to 5% for purchases on eBay, which is fantastic. In comparison, Shopback offers only 1% cash back for eBay purchases. The email notification pictured above tells me i have earned US$4.05 for a US$135 purchase, which works out to be a 3% cash back.

You may be wondering what is worth buying on eBay. Let me tell you – beauty product samples. Guys, don’t back away and think this does not apply to you. You have no idea how much money you may be saving when your spouse buys the sample instead of the full retail product. Even when you buy the full retail products on eBay, you’ll be saving lots compared to buying from the local store. What i do is to find those eBay sellers who have collected a large quantity of samples, where, often the total quantity is more or less the same as the retail product, but at a fraction of the price. Sometimes, you can find sellers with overstock items at less than wholesale prices (for the lower cost products only of course).

For other US branded goods, it is also great to use Ebates for cash back. There’s no stopping you from grabbing Black Friday deals, or clearance sales that happen every now and then, and earning cash back at the same time when you’re already getting a good deal. Shipping is easy, and relatively cheap (don’t use the shipping service offered on the merchant sites, they’re rip-off!).

Finally, there is car rental, for which i doubt Shopback will ever bother to offer cash back, because the demand is probably too little compared to the demand for car rental in the US. For my upcoming trip to Korea, i have two car rental arrangements with Sixt, and i’m earning cash back for the rentals, so the cash back actually works for worldwide car rentals. As you can imagine, car rentals easily cost hundreds of dollars each time, so the cash back, even at just a few percent, is very significant. Don’t lose out on such savings. Sign up for Ebates and get the cash back.